Tag Archives: Tricks

Samsung’s Galaxy S III was no doubt one of the most hotly anticipated handset of this year. Now, that the handset has hit the retail stores in quite a few regions of the world, it has been setting the sales chart on fire, even with its exorbitant price tag.

Samsung handsets are known to come with some nifty features and tricks one can only find after playing around with the handset. Below is a list of tips and tricks that Samsung has included in the Galaxy S III -:

1) Sort the App Drawer Alphabetically – The TouchWIZ launcher in Samsung Galaxy S II did not sort the installed apps in alphabetical order for some strange reason. Thankfully, Samsung the TouchWIZ launcher in Samsung Galaxy S III has the ability to sort the installed apps in alphabetical order.

You can do so by opening the app drawer, pressing the menu button, and selecting the “Alphabetical Grid” option from the ‘View Type’ menu.

2) Swiping left to right across a contact in the Contacts app or the Messaging app will call that person, while a right to left swipe will allow you to directly send a text message to that person.

3) If you have turned off the auto-brightness on your Galaxy S III, you can manually control the brightness by simply sliding your finger across the notification bar at the top, when on your home screen. Samsung had introduced this feature back in the Galaxy S and it has since then been ported to all other popular custom ROMs including CM7 and CM9.

4) Enable Swype Keyboard – Like the Galaxy S and Galaxy S II, the Galaxy S III also comes with Swype keyboard pre-installed. However, for some strange reason, the keyboard has been somewhat merged with the stock Samsung’s keyboard, and its functionality has also been limited to certain places only.

To enable Swype keyboard on your Galaxy S III, head over to Settings -> Language and Input. Select the ‘Settings’ button next to the Samsung Keyboard and then select the “Continuous Input” option from the menu that pops up.

5) Samsung has included two different ways to take screenshot in the Galaxy S III. The first way is to swipe your palm across the screen from left to right or right to left, and the phone will automatically take a screenshot. However, this feature will only work in certain places like the home screen and not while watching a video or playing a game.

The second and more conventional way to take a screenshot is to keep the Home and Power button pressed simultaneously for 2-3 seconds.

6) The stock lock screen on the Galaxy S III allows users to have 4 short cuts for quick access to certain apps. The option to change the lock screen shortcut has however been hidden deep in the Security sub-menu under Settings.

Head over to Settings -> Security and select the ‘Lockscreen option’ to change the default lockscreen shortcuts.

7) Light Flow – The Galaxy S III is the first handset in the Galaxy series to come with a notification LED. The RGB notification LED has been beautifully hidden at the top left of the handset. By default, the LED will blink blue for any missed notifications, and red when the battery is low.

However, using an application called Light Flow, users can customize the LED color according to the notification. The application does not work properly with the Galaxy S3 at the moment though. A temporary issue floating around the Internet is to revoke the Accessibility access from the app.

8) Motion –Galaxy S III comes with a bunch of sensors and Samsung has made some intuitive use of it. The company has included some nifty features like Direct Call, Smart Alert, Tap to Top, Tilt to Zoom and more. However, most of these options are disabled by default. Don’t forget to enable them from Settings -> Motion.

And that’s it! We will update this post if we find out any new hidden feature in the Galaxy S III.